Judy Garland: Seconals, Benzedrine, and Dexedrine…Oh My

With a few clicks of their ruby slippers, MGM made 16-year-old Judy Garland a box office giant, but their strict rules nearly killed the budding starlet in the process. The studio’s strict diet of chicken soup, uppers, and downers set up teenage Judy for a life fraught with addiction, malnutrition, extreme health complications, and regular visits to rehab. Even years after Judy severed ties with MGM, the effects of her highly-regulated adolescence creeped into her career, literally poisoning her life — and her liver. A star was born when Judy filmed The Wizard of Oz, but by her late forties, that same star was in rapid decline.

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Speaker 1: Hey guys, it's Zeth Lundy, good doctor here at Double

Speaker 1: Elvis and co hosts of the Hollywood Lamb Podcast, and

Speaker 1: welcome once again as we wind the reels back for

Speaker 1: another story from our archive, this one on Judy Garland.

Speaker 1: MGM made sixteen year old Judy Garland a box office giant,

Speaker 1: but their strict rules nearly killed her in the process.

Speaker 1: The studio strict diet of chicken soup, uppers and downers

Speaker 1: set up teenage Judy for a life fraught with addiction, malnutrition,

Speaker 1: extreme health complications, and regular visits to rehab. Even years

Speaker 1: after Judy severed ties with MGM, the effects of her

Speaker 1: highly regulated adolescence creaked into her career, literally poisoning her life.

Speaker 1: A Star was born when Judy filmed The Wizard of Oz,

Speaker 1: but by her late forties, that same star was in

Speaker 1: rapid decline. And speaking of a Star is Born, make

Speaker 1: sure you check out a brand new installment of the

Speaker 1: Screening Room here on Friday, in which I'll take a

Speaker 1: deep dive into the twenty eighteen remake of A Star

Speaker 1: Is Born, directed by Bradley Cooper and starring Lady Gaga.

Speaker 1: But not before I hear from all of You about

Speaker 1: your favorite movie remakes Wednesday in the Rap Party.

Speaker 2: This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.

Speaker 2: Please check the show notes for more information. Hollywood Land

Speaker 2: is a production of Double Elvis Jr. When I'm On.

Speaker 2: The story is about Judy Garland are insane. She began

Speaker 2: a daily regiment of diet pills and downers when she

Speaker 2: was only fourteen years old. She subsisted on a diet

Speaker 2: of chicken soup, black coffee, and cigarettes to remain ninety

Speaker 2: eight pounds at the request of MGM's studios. Her decades

Speaker 2: long dependence on pills caused her liver to swell to

Speaker 2: four times its normal size, nearly killing her in her

Speaker 2: late thirties. But despite all the abuse her body received

Speaker 2: from a very early age, Judy Garland made great films.

Speaker 2: Unlike that clip I played for you at the top

Speaker 2: of the show. That wasn't a clip from a great film.

Speaker 2: That was a fair use. Sample from the Library of

Speaker 2: Congress of the Homestead Trio performing Just a Baby's Prayer

Speaker 2: at Twilight in nineteen eighteen. I played you that clip

Speaker 2: because I can't afford the rights to Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard,

Speaker 2: and why would I play you that specific slice of

Speaker 2: ready for my close up cheese? Could I have ford it?

Speaker 2: Because that was the number one movie in America On

Speaker 2: September twenty ninth, nineteen fifty in that was the day

Speaker 2: MGM dissolved their contract with Judy Garland, leaving her completely

Speaker 2: alone for the first time in her life. On this episode,

Speaker 2: Uppers downers near fatal diets MGM in their Little Movie

Speaker 2: Star Too, Judy Garland, I'm Jake Brennan and this is

Speaker 2: Hollywood Land. The taxi blitz through another red light. Judy

Speaker 2: Garland watched the traffic signal shrink in the rear view

Speaker 2: mirror as the car raced forward. That was the second

Speaker 2: one the driver ignored. If count was correct, the cab

Speaker 2: glided like a checkered yellow race car, swerving, speeding, switching

Speaker 2: lanes on a dime, with fractions of a second despair.

Speaker 2: Red lights were merely suggestions, and this cabby wasn't taking

Speaker 2: any unsolicited advice. Today, you'd be hard pressed to find

Speaker 2: an ambulance driver who could do any better. Judy's husband

Speaker 2: flagged the right cab driver that day, and that much

Speaker 2: was certain. It didn't matter who he pissed off for,

Speaker 2: whose new paint job he dinged. This ride was a

Speaker 2: matter of life or death. Frankly, at this point it

Speaker 2: was closer to death. Judy rested her hands over her

Speaker 2: stomach like an expectant mother in the backseat, The plush

Speaker 2: fabric of her gown strained to contain her swollen flesh.

Speaker 2: She imagined the buttons down her back bursting off one

Speaker 2: at a time, and the sleeves of her gown cutting

Speaker 2: into her thick biceps in the stage clothes slicing her

Speaker 2: porcelain skin. Her third and current husband, sid Love, rested

Speaker 2: a hand on her knee, also swollen. Everything about Judy

Speaker 2: Garland was swollen body parts you didn't even think could swell.

Speaker 2: Sydney had never seen anything like it perform. He gave

Speaker 2: her inflated knee as sympathetic squeeze and forced a smile,

Speaker 2: But when his gaze drifted to the Martini in Judy's hand,

Speaker 2: his smile crumpled into a grimace. November nineteen fifty nine.

Speaker 2: In the beginning, Sidney didn't think anything of Judy's weight game,

Speaker 2: not when her current tour began right here in New

Speaker 2: York roughly six months prior. In May, she looked exuberant,

Speaker 2: well as exuberant as a woman addicted to prescription pills

Speaker 2: could be. While Judy eight pills like candy, her fans

Speaker 2: ate up her live performances, swooning over her renditions of

Speaker 2: famous show tunes. Sydney booked the shows Judy sang the classics.

Speaker 2: It was an arrangement that kept Judy off movie sets

Speaker 2: and kept her hardcore admirers aka the Cult of Garland happy.

Speaker 2: By nineteen fifty nine, Judy had repeated this rigorous regiment

Speaker 2: of performances hundreds of times. She even set a new

Speaker 2: record for most consecutive shows at the Palace Theater in

Speaker 2: Los Angeles. Judy once packed the Palace every day, twice

Speaker 2: a day for nineteen weeks straight, no days off. Judy

Speaker 2: single handedly brought eight hundred thousand people to the Palace

Speaker 2: between nineteen fifty one and nineteen fifty two, making her

Speaker 2: solely responsible for the renewal of America's premiere vaudeville theater.

Speaker 2: But that was at the beginning of the fifties. This

Speaker 2: was the tail end of the decade. Judy was thirty seven.

Speaker 2: Now she wore almost twenty five years of showbiz and

Speaker 2: the lines on her face. Most people with deep seated

Speaker 2: addictions didn't make it to twenty seven, let alone thirty seven.

Speaker 2: She in Sydney had to cough up their own cash

Speaker 2: to finance and promoter her performances. As Judy's figure bloated

Speaker 2: further over a six month operatur, it became clear why

Speaker 2: no insurance company wanted to touch her. Sidney knew his wife,

Speaker 2: he knew her way fluctuated whose didn't. But something was

Speaker 2: different this time. This didn't just seem like extra pounds.

Speaker 2: Something was very wrong. So Sidney devised a plan. He

Speaker 2: rang up a doctor pal of his and invited him

Speaker 2: to stop backstage before a show. Sidney instructed the doctor

Speaker 2: to visit him and Judy away from the crowds, and

Speaker 2: while he was back there, he needed to get a

Speaker 2: good glimpse of Judy. He was to report back to

Speaker 2: Sydney under the radar. The doctor's discrete diagnosis was worse

Speaker 2: than Sidney imagined. Judy hadn't gained weight, not in the

Speaker 2: normal sense. Instead, her body was flush with toxic fluids

Speaker 2: and after effect of her daily pill popping that went

Speaker 2: back to her formative years as a teenage actress, back

Speaker 2: when MGM pumped her full of chemicals like a labrat.

Speaker 2: The build up meant that something in Judy's body wasn't

Speaker 2: functioning properly, her spleen, or her pancreas, even her liver,

Speaker 2: maybe all the above. Her condition was so severe that

Speaker 2: the doctor informed Sidney that Judy could slip into a

Speaker 2: coma at any moment, and there was no guarantee that

Speaker 2: she'd come out of it either. The odds were grim,

Speaker 2: but not as grim as what Judy demanded next. Apparently,

Speaker 2: the urgency of her current medical situation paled in comparison

Speaker 2: to Judy's urgent thirst for a stiff drink. When Sidney

Speaker 2: tried to coerce her into a cab, Judy's face snapped,

Speaker 2: and there was her stubbornness smuggled inside that Transatlantic accent

Speaker 2: of hers. She wasn't going anywhere, she had formed her husband,

Speaker 2: not until she had a martini in her hand. Sidney

Speaker 2: wanted to snap right back at her. She was a

Speaker 2: stuck up fool and capable of seeing the irony of

Speaker 2: her request, but arguing meant losing precious time. Sidney conceded

Speaker 2: Judy got her triple vodka. She nursed it in the

Speaker 2: back seat of the taxi that Sidney is flagged down.

Speaker 2: Judy clutched her drink in one gloved hand and tapped

Speaker 2: the caviy on the shoulder with the other. She instructed

Speaker 2: him to whisk her away to the doctor's hospital on

Speaker 2: East End Avenue and to fucking step on it. Judy

Speaker 2: didn't slip into a coma in the backseat, Miraculously, her

Speaker 2: liver held out for the ride as she doused it

Speaker 2: with more alcohol, even more poison on top of the

Speaker 2: poison she was already packing. After she weakly sauntered into

Speaker 2: the hospital, doctors drained twenty quarts of toxic fluids from

Speaker 2: her body. That's five gallons. Five gallons of poison swishing

Speaker 2: around in her body, inflating her limbs, her stomach, her

Speaker 2: face every day for god knows how many months. As

Speaker 2: it turns out, Judy's liver had grown to four times

Speaker 2: its normal size, undoubtedly the result of two plus decades

Speaker 2: of pill and alcohol abuse. Judy wilted in a hospital

Speaker 2: bed for nearly two months. The whispers, on the other hand, flourished.

Speaker 2: Judy Garland might not make Judy Garland had already performed

Speaker 2: her final show, but Judy's signature stubbornness resurfaced. After seven weeks,

Speaker 2: she pulled through, perhaps if only, despite the naysayers. When

Speaker 2: she regained her strength, the doctors shared one final earth

Speaker 2: shattering discovery she would likely never perform again. After such

Speaker 2: a close brush with death, Judy was bound to live

Speaker 2: the rest of her life as a quote unquote semi invalid.

Speaker 2: The recommendation was that the only time she would appear

Speaker 2: on screens was for a rerun of the Wizard of Oz. Hey,

Speaker 2: at least it was a regular gig, and the pre

Speaker 2: cable era of the Wizard of Oz was broadcast on

Speaker 2: CBS at least once a year from nineteen fifty nine

Speaker 2: to nineteen ninety one. But the doctors underestimated her. Few

Speaker 2: performers had ever spent more hours on a set or

Speaker 2: stage than the great Judy Garland. She was born to perform.

Speaker 2: This debacle was just a short lived setback. If anything

Speaker 2: was going to bring down the curtain on Judy Garland,

Speaker 2: it would be the one instant in her life since

Speaker 2: age fourteen, Not movie sets, not stages. It will be

Speaker 2: the tablets of second off bends a train, the decks

Speaker 2: a train. Oh my, Judy Garland felt it in her chest. First,

Speaker 2: the delicate pitter powder of her heartbeat graduated to thump's

Speaker 2: live pounding wallops that beat against her rip cage. Her

Speaker 2: heart pumped blood and deep throbs. Energy surged through her veins.

Speaker 2: She gasped and sat up in her chair. It must

Speaker 2: be showtime. Judy didn't know what time it was. She

Speaker 2: didn't know how long she had knocked out either. She

Speaker 2: never knew much of anything. When she jolted awake from

Speaker 2: the smog and washed over her brain courtesy of the

Speaker 2: mighty dose of nempatal, Judy felt the speed course through

Speaker 2: her nerves, striking her limbs like bolts of lightning. She

Speaker 2: twirled one of her braids as she meandered back onto set.

Speaker 2: Munchkin Land was gone, so were the literal thousands of

Speaker 2: quote unquote munchkins frolicking around in their Glittery garb MGM's

Speaker 2: staff had apparently reset the scenery for the Wizard of ozshoot.

Speaker 2: While Judy dozed peacefully on the sidelines, so dead to

Speaker 2: the world you would have thought someone dropped a house

Speaker 2: on her. It was only natural then then another handful

Speaker 2: of diapills were required to kickstart Judy's spunk in prepper

Speaker 2: for the next scene. MGM dished out those diapills like

Speaker 2: routine vitamins. Back when Judy Garland first inked the contract

Speaker 2: with the studio in nineteen thirty five, she was a

Speaker 2: perfectly healthy thirteen year old with a taste for pistachio

Speaker 2: ice cream. But perfectly healthy just wouldn't do. Not by

Speaker 2: the unattainable standards of the nineteen thirties, an ice cream

Speaker 2: wouldn't do either. The studio had strict orders from Louis B.

Speaker 2: Mayor himself groom that girl and slimmer. The studio began

Speaker 2: a regiment of daily diapels for Judy, which she washed

Speaker 2: down with a bowl of chicken soup every single day,

Speaker 2: hot sticky broth in the dry California heat for lunch,

Speaker 2: for dinner on Christmas. It was practically torture, but it

Speaker 2: was torture that provided results, and Louis Mayer was all

Speaker 2: about results. When Judy thinned out, the constant stream of

Speaker 2: soup and pills didn't slow down. A diminutive, ladylike figure

Speaker 2: was a top priority if he wanted to be in pictures.

Speaker 2: MGM liked Judy best when she was ninety eight pounds,

Speaker 2: no more, no less, so the regiment continued. The diep

Speaker 2: pills kept her upbeat and underweight, but they kept her

Speaker 2: wide awake at night too. MGM was unfit. They had

Speaker 2: an easy solution for them, also in a pill form.

Speaker 2: She was already accustomed to taking a bunch of those

Speaker 2: every day. What were a few more? The studio doctor

Speaker 2: prescribed Judy a heavy dosage a second all to help

Speaker 2: her quickly slip into her beauty sleep every night, essentially

Speaker 2: overpowering the pep of the diapills. The second halls work

Speaker 2: so well that Judy now needed the diapills as she

Speaker 2: wanted some spring to her step on set lest she

Speaker 2: succumbed to the comole like slumber. Then the second afs

Speaker 2: provided her. It became, of course, a vicious cycle. Practically overnight,

Speaker 2: Judy needed downers to overpower the uppers. She reached for

Speaker 2: uppers to snap her out of the drowsiness provided by

Speaker 2: the downers, Popped down, up down, a walking talking yo yo.

Speaker 2: MGM saw the cycle as so effective that they started

Speaker 2: using nematod to course Judy's body and to rest when

Speaker 2: a set needed to be changed in the middle of

Speaker 2: the sixteen hour days. If there were two or three

Speaker 2: hours to spare, and Judy was wide eyed and jeeped

Speaker 2: up that ment, it was time to metaphorically trapes through

Speaker 2: some poppy fields on the way to OZ and pass

Speaker 2: out for a spout. When the set was prepped, the

Speaker 2: diapills reaned her and she was off to see the

Speaker 2: Wizard once again. Judy lived the life of a nineteen

Speaker 2: seventies era a rock star, swinging between states of consciousness,

Speaker 2: each triggered by a prescription pill. She was hopelessly hooked.

Speaker 2: But unlike the troubled rockers who pissed away their twenties

Speaker 2: and thirties with pills, Judy Garland was sixteen years old.

Speaker 2: Not to worry, though she'd be a full fledged, fully

Speaker 2: grown superstar at no time. Judy was on the up

Speaker 2: and up, and so was her pill to take. Judy

Speaker 2: Garland's migraine pulsed so intensely that it almost aligned with

Speaker 2: her heartbeat. The stream of California sun peeking into her

Speaker 2: trailer of pierced her vision like shrapnel. It cut to

Speaker 2: the core of her retinas, pinched her brain, and Judy

Speaker 2: snapped the blind shut and plopped onto her sofa, shielding

Speaker 2: her eyes from any extra light. With her palm, she

Speaker 2: smeared a swath of face pain in the process. Oh shit,

Speaker 2: oh wow, wardrobe could do it again after her lunch break.

Speaker 2: It was a ridiculous sight. A lily white woman dressed

Speaker 2: head to toe in a phony Native American costume, the moccasins,

Speaker 2: the single red feather tuck between her brunette braids, white

Speaker 2: and yellow lines drawn down her nose, her cheeks. She

Speaker 2: was a gaudy caricature, Hollywood stereotypical idea of what an

Speaker 2: entire race of people looked like. And this was not

Speaker 2: how Annie Oakley Sharpshooter of the Wild West dressed. But

Speaker 2: to the folks at MGM producing the film version of

Speaker 2: Annie Get Your Gun, it was imperative to include a

Speaker 2: massive and wildly racist musical number called I Am an Indian.

Speaker 2: Too horrific by twenty twenty two standards, but reprehensibly normal

Speaker 2: in nineteen forty nine. As one of the heavy hitters

Speaker 2: at the box office in MGM's Golden Girl next Door,

Speaker 2: Judy Garland was the obvious choice for the role of

Speaker 2: the titular markswoman. At least she was until it came

Speaker 2: time to film the movie, when it became obvious that

Speaker 2: Judy was very much the wrong choice. By the end

Speaker 2: of the nineteen forties, Judy Garland filmed twenty seven movies

Speaker 2: in thirteen years with MGM. She was hooked on pills

Speaker 2: while she filmed every single one of them. Judy had

Speaker 2: already been in and out of rehabilitation centers, diagnosed with

Speaker 2: malnutrition and exhaustion. Her strict chicken soup diet expanded to

Speaker 2: include black coffee, benz a dream and four packs of

Speaker 2: cigarettes a day required to curb the hunger. After working

Speaker 2: sixteen to eighteen hour days while shooting The Pirate just

Speaker 2: a year or so prior, Judy became so thin that

Speaker 2: MGM even asked her to gain weight. The diet pills

Speaker 2: were useless, even harmful now, but the withdrawals not at

Speaker 2: Judy's acting abilities. She kept with her uppers and downers

Speaker 2: her tee just to spare herself with the pain. A

Speaker 2: former US Commissioner of Narcotics even suggested to MGM the

Speaker 2: Judy get a year of rest because of her severe

Speaker 2: drug problem. MGM scoffed at the notion they had fourteen

Speaker 2: million dollars tied up in this woman. Judy wasn't going anywhere.

Speaker 2: You could say that the shit started to hit the

Speaker 2: fan when the camera started rolling for any gay gun,

Speaker 2: but truth was the shit had been splattering all over

Speaker 2: MGM sets for years. This was just a breaking point,

Speaker 2: one of many to come with the course of Judy's career.

Speaker 2: It started with that migraine, the omnipresent stab wound between

Speaker 2: her eyes and her forehead and striking her brain and

Speaker 2: her skull simultaneously. The pain made it difficult for Judy

Speaker 2: to retain her lines, or the immense amount of coordination

Speaker 2: required to remain in step with the choreography for a

Speaker 2: complicated musical number. And then there was the Southern draw,

Speaker 2: or Judy's complete lack thereof. She struggled to pick up

Speaker 2: a convincing twang that would hide her crisp way of speaking.

Speaker 2: But the most glaring evidence that Judy Gerlin had been

Speaker 2: woefully miscast is that Judy Gerlin was afraid of guns.

Speaker 2: The movie's hero and outlaw with a quick draw was

Speaker 2: terrified to pull the trigger. MGM found a replacement before

Speaker 2: they wasted much more time trying to sell Judy as

Speaker 2: a rifle to rough and tumble rask of the wild West.

Speaker 2: A knock on Judy's trailer roused her from her position

Speaker 2: on the sofa. She dragged herself over to the door telegram.

Speaker 2: Her eyes struggled to focus on the message. She squinted

Speaker 2: at the brief note, don't bother the report back to

Speaker 2: work after lunch because you were dismissed from the picture,

Speaker 2: the telegram stated, those rats. She crumpled the letter in

Speaker 2: her fist with disgust, tossed it on the floor, and

Speaker 2: stopped on it with her tacky moccasins. The audacity dropped

Speaker 2: from a picture like a hapless has been or an

Speaker 2: underwhelming amateur. She was Judy Garland. She practically invented the

Speaker 2: great MGM musicals. What was Louis V. Mayor thinking? Judy

Speaker 2: collapsed back onto the sofa with a huff. This wouldn't

Speaker 2: sit well with her fans, that much was for sure.

Speaker 2: So while the public and the press salivated over their

Speaker 2: so called scandals of Jewy's medical matters, she jetted to

Speaker 2: the East Coast to try to pry herself from her

Speaker 2: pill popping yet again, and she checked into the Peter

Speaker 2: Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston in May of nineteen forty nine.

Speaker 2: In place of the pills, the facility provided Judy with

Speaker 2: three hearty meals a day. Chicken soup was finally off

Speaker 2: the menu. Judy gained back her spirit and some healthy

Speaker 2: weight over the course of thirteen weeks, right up until

Speaker 2: Louis B. Mayor closed his checkbook. He insisted that Judy

Speaker 2: returned to Hollywood to film Summer Stock, MGM's next musical

Speaker 2: starring Judy and Gene Kelly, but according to the hospital staff,

Speaker 2: Judy still needed another three months of treatment to fully recover.

Speaker 2: Mayor dangled Judy's contract over her shred or SB. When

Speaker 2: Judy left the facility that summer, she left behind her

Speaker 2: hard earned personal growth too. As predicted, Summer Stock undid everything.

Speaker 2: The progress with the kicking of the pills her healthy

Speaker 2: new figure both gone instantly. Upon her arrival in California,

Speaker 2: MGM reeled at Judy's weight game, and the studio demanded

Speaker 2: that she dropped fifteen pounds before the start of Summer Stock.

Speaker 2: Judy only managed to drop eleven pounds and seven days

Speaker 2: a frightening medical feat but a major disappointment for MGM. Nonetheless,

Speaker 2: Boston had recharged Judy's battery, but barely. She suffered through summerstock.

Speaker 2: She got happy when she needed a smile on set,

Speaker 2: as the flick's famous musical number demanded, but summerstock depleted

Speaker 2: Judy Garland. She was running on empty once again, and

Speaker 2: when she missed a handful of rehearsals for MGM's next picture,

Speaker 2: Royal Wedding, the studio gave Judy the boot before she

Speaker 2: had the chance to redeem herself. Another failed starring role,

Speaker 2: another telegram, and a final parting message from MGM straight

Speaker 2: from Western Union. You're fired, this time for good. First,

Speaker 2: MGM suspended Judy's contract in June of nineteen fifty. They

Speaker 2: officially ripped it up in September. MGM offered her no

Speaker 2: severance pay. She had no retirement funds, no residuals nowhere

Speaker 2: to turn for new film work, no directors to guide

Speaker 2: her through her next steps. Her career was in her own,

Speaker 2: shaky hands. Now for the first time since she was thirteen,

Speaker 2: Judy Garland was on her own. We'll be right back

Speaker 2: after this. We're We're, We're, Judy Garland hunched over and

Speaker 2: placed both hands on her knees. She panted, the blue

Speaker 2: and white polka dotted kerchief knotted around her neck, seeing

Speaker 2: a squeezy air from her throat, Sweat soaked into her

Speaker 2: itching nylons, pins in her hair, pulled at her scalp.

Speaker 2: Picture perfect updues weren't made to wear all day, not

Speaker 2: unless you were on set, of course, They then stayed

Speaker 2: in until the scene was picture perfect, literally in this

Speaker 2: musical sequence for the song The Man That Got Away

Speaker 2: was far from it. From her crouched position, Judy slowly

Speaker 2: raised her eyes to director George Q. Kor as if

Speaker 2: to say, are we done yet? He shook his head. No.

Speaker 2: Judy almost collapsed, almost, but instead the beads of perspiration

Speaker 2: from her forehead and went back to her seat at

Speaker 2: the piano bench. Was this take twelve, Take twenty three.

Speaker 2: Judy couldn't keep track if she tried, especially not over

Speaker 2: the course of three days singing the same song for

Speaker 2: the same scene. She caught her breath at the piano

Speaker 2: and reset her mind, and then her voice and then

Speaker 2: her face, and she did what the prose did. Judy

Speaker 2: Garland was still a pro even if she wasn't making

Speaker 2: movies with MGM anymore. For one, Judy had already proven

Speaker 2: herself to the public hundreds of times over with her

Speaker 2: live performances of Garland catalog classics. Hundreds of thousands of

Speaker 2: tickets sold almost a million. But could Judy still move

Speaker 2: movie tickets? That was the real question. You're only as

Speaker 2: good as your last picture, and Judy's last picture was well,

Speaker 2: she got kicked out of her last picture. Royal Wedding

Speaker 2: was a few years ago. Now. That's why her return

Speaker 2: to the screen had to be larger than life. Personal, musical, magical,

Speaker 2: intricately dotted with details about rising to celebrity status. Influenced

Speaker 2: by Judy's Verio own story, it had to be A

Speaker 2: Star As Born, the nineteen thirty seven films starring Janet

Speaker 2: Gainer had been on Judy's mind for more than a decade.

Speaker 2: Judy had played the leading role of Vicky Lester in

Speaker 2: nineteen forty two Lux radio production of the story, but

Speaker 2: that was only audio. Judy yearned to bring her to

Speaker 2: life in a proper remake of A Star Is Born

Speaker 2: to depict two lives entangled in the nefarious nature of fame.

Speaker 2: As one of her rises to the height of celebrity

Speaker 2: while the other sinks from standing ovations into obscurity. Since

Speaker 2: MGM was no longer forcing her to tap dance through

Speaker 2: mind numbing musical numbers, the project was a real possibility.

Speaker 2: Now she switched studios and secured the rights to make

Speaker 2: a new version of A Star Is Born with Warner Brothers.

Speaker 2: Judy could continue her career on her own. She could

Speaker 2: make a movie on her own. So to speak, Judy

Speaker 2: Garlan could do the same scene, and I mean the

Speaker 2: same scene, same voice inflection, same facial expression, same showgirl

Speaker 2: poised twenty seven times over the course of the three days.

Speaker 2: Judy Garland could do anything if she had the proper pills.

Speaker 2: That was the caveat. It had always been the caveat.

Speaker 2: Nothing could keep Judy down except a lack of pills.

Speaker 2: When filming for A Star Was Born began, Judy's husband, Sidney,

Speaker 2: created a compromise of sorts. He hired a studio doctor

Speaker 2: from MGM, who was already familiar with Judy's medical history,

Speaker 2: to oversee her pill and take over the course of

Speaker 2: the film shoot. At the time, it seemed like the

Speaker 2: most humane option. The work would still get done, Judy

Speaker 2: could focus, there would be no withdrawals to weaken her performance,

Speaker 2: and the doctor could ensure that her intake didn't escalate.

Speaker 2: Not that it could escalate. Really, pop uppers and downers

Speaker 2: every day of your life from age fourteen and onwards,

Speaker 2: and your tolerance will rock it over the rainbow. For months,

Speaker 2: Judy chased a new personal career high as she filtered

Speaker 2: her own life story through the explosive passion of the

Speaker 2: character of Vicky Lester. The pills powered her through an

Speaker 2: unhinged portrayal of a new starlet witnessing an older star

Speaker 2: crumble into ashes at the hand of alcoholism. Judy took

Speaker 2: her time developing her rendition of the story, giving it

Speaker 2: the care and attention to detail she knew it deserved.

Speaker 2: The movie's final cut clocked in at just over three hours,

Speaker 2: but the film that the Cult of Garland saw on

Speaker 2: opening night in September of nineteen fifty four was not

Speaker 2: the same film that the rest of the nation would

Speaker 2: see later that fall. With a run time of one

Speaker 2: hundred and eighty two minutes, movie theaters could only show

Speaker 2: the film three times per day, so they demanded a

Speaker 2: shorter cut, a cut that could show five times every

Speaker 2: day to sell more tickets and bring in more moviegoers

Speaker 2: with more cash. Warner Brothers wanted to see more ticket

Speaker 2: sales too, Since the film had cost them six million

Speaker 2: dollars instead of the two and a half million they

Speaker 2: originally budgeted for, the studio cut the film to one

Speaker 2: hundred minutes, removing almost half of the movie. The story

Speaker 2: was ruined, Judy's authentic, well developed drama was reduced to

Speaker 2: a shallow set of musical numbers. A Star Was Born

Speaker 2: was considered a financial failure. It was a failure at

Speaker 2: controlling Judy's pill problem too. Sidney's heart was in the

Speaker 2: right place when he hired that studio doctor, but his

Speaker 2: common sense was not. Once the couple returned to their

Speaker 2: home in bel Air, just a stone's throw from fellow

Speaker 2: Hollywood hotshots being crosby Lana Turner, he suspected things were

Speaker 2: worse than he could have ever imagined. Sidney realized that

Speaker 2: the moment he accepted a package from Sacks Fifth Avenue

Speaker 2: on Judy's behalf. Of course, under normal circumstances, a flush

Speaker 2: film star receiving an order from a high end clothing

Speaker 2: store might not raise any red flags. But Sidney knew

Speaker 2: that Judy wasn't on set anymore, where she could cop

Speaker 2: pills from almost anyone on payroll, even from the mescuse

Speaker 2: if she needed to. But now Judy was home, and

Speaker 2: that meant she had to get crafty. Sidney Young wrapped

Speaker 2: the package. He removed a flowing robe from the box,

Speaker 2: rubbed the plush fabric between his fingers. That's when he

Speaker 2: felt a tuine old capsule sewn into the lining. He

Speaker 2: ran his hands down the length of the rope. He

Speaker 2: felt another, and another, and then another. He unfolded the

Speaker 2: robe to find dozens of pills, each carefully sewn into

Speaker 2: the fabric, hidden from unsuspecting mailmen and snooping husbands. Sidney's

Speaker 2: cheeks went pale with shock, and then pink with shame,

Speaker 2: and then they darkened to red. He chucked the robe

Speaker 2: onto the floor and started tossing open drawers, lifting up rugs,

Speaker 2: digging through old trunks, examining the curtains. How many pills

Speaker 2: could one woman possibly hide? He couldn't fathom the answer,

Speaker 2: not even after he saw it with his own eyes.

Speaker 2: There were second ales buried in Judy's bathpowder, stray pills,

Speaker 2: sleeping at the bottom of her cigarette packages. Her stashes

Speaker 2: spread across every square inch of the house, each in

Speaker 2: different unique locations lest someone find one collection. It was

Speaker 2: like a treasure hunt that never ended. After all, a

Speaker 2: woman who would consume forty dex a dream in a

Speaker 2: single day had to keep hundreds of tablets on her

Speaker 2: if she wanted to keep up with her habit for

Speaker 2: more than a few days at a time. God damn it.

Speaker 2: It was an enigbler, a fucking enabler. Sydney saw that.

Speaker 2: Now he let Judy keeper precious pills on the set

Speaker 2: of a star was born, and this is what he

Speaker 2: got in returned stashes of second halls and a secretive wife.

Speaker 2: Some good the humane approach had done no more, mister

Speaker 2: nice guy. Sidney loved Judy fiercely, so fiercely then he

Speaker 2: knew we had to be a prick about him. So

Speaker 2: the gloves came off. When Judy came to later that day,

Speaker 2: Sydney confronted her about the veritable pharmacy hidden in their

Speaker 2: family's home. He threatened to leave, but his heart wasn't

Speaker 2: in it. He just wanted to scare Judy into action.

Speaker 2: His threat fell flat. It only confirmed Judy's feelings that

Speaker 2: Sydney was nothing but a square. Judy would have her

Speaker 2: pills tonight and tomorrow night, and for as long as

Speaker 2: she liked. I don't give a fuck get lost. I

Speaker 2: dare you leave? And Judy cried out, So Sidney did

Speaker 2: just that. He stormed out of the house and checked

Speaker 2: into a nearby motel. Another farce. It did little more

Speaker 2: than spur on rumors in the papers that the couple

Speaker 2: was headed for divorce. The entire argument was a losing battle,

Speaker 2: Just like Judy's addiction. The pills would always be with Judy.

Speaker 2: I think even when MGM wasn't, even when Sidney wasn't

Speaker 2: called Judy garland A has been in the Hollywood scene,

Speaker 2: and she'll shoot a three hour masterpiece at the public

Speaker 2: I'll never see cholera semi invalid, and she'll perform a

Speaker 2: show herald it as the greatest knight in show business history.

Speaker 2: Judy held Carnegie Hall in the palm of her hands

Speaker 2: on April twenty third, nineteen sixty one, well over a

Speaker 2: year since her incident with the enlarged liver and toxic

Speaker 2: fluids polluting her body. Never mind that speed bump right

Speaker 2: now that was all at the back of Judy's mind.

Speaker 2: Headlining Carnegie Hall was about glistening like a newly reborn

Speaker 2: of Phoenix under those storied stage lights, About regaling an

Speaker 2: a list audience featuring the likes of Richard Burton and

Speaker 2: Marilyn Monroe. About recording one of the greatest live albums

Speaker 2: of all time, a Billboard bestseller and multi Grammy Award winner.

Speaker 2: The adoration for Judy and Music Hall reflected off of

Speaker 2: her cheeks. She was a revelation. She glowed, but that

Speaker 2: was not tonight. Tonight, in nineteen sixty nine, Judy Garland

Speaker 2: disgraced the State Age in London. Cigarette ashes rained down

Speaker 2: on her from ash trays. The crowd had launched on

Speaker 2: stage and discussed. The audience pitched, trash hissed from their seats.

Speaker 2: Debris was scattered all across the stage. Judy crouched down

Speaker 2: to a shrunken position and tried to collect it all.

Speaker 2: One fing catapulted some hard lump sugar across the piano

Speaker 2: on stage, which shattered a glass as it whirled Buie.

Speaker 2: Judy had showed up one hour and forty five minutes

Speaker 2: late that evening, after relentlessly trying to back out of

Speaker 2: the show. Her body was too weak, she protested, Her

Speaker 2: voice was too weak, her spirit was slipping too. Judy

Speaker 2: was quite the actress, but she wasn't exaggerating. By nineteen

Speaker 2: sixty nine, her nervous system was shattered, her sense of

Speaker 2: balance was non existent. Her body odor literally changed, a

Speaker 2: symptom of malnutrition. She craved twenty to thirty riddling tablets

Speaker 2: every day, followed by eight second alls to sleep. The

Speaker 2: same pills that propped her up for decades were finally

Speaker 2: pulling her under. When Judy Garland greeted her audience nearly

Speaker 2: two hours behind schedule, her guests were related to see

Speaker 2: her elated because they could finally give her a piece

Speaker 2: of their mind. The boldest of the critics vaulted himself

Speaker 2: on stage amidst the chaos and swiped the mic stand

Speaker 2: from Judy's trembling hands. If you can't turn up on time,

Speaker 2: why turn up at all, he bellowed. Years ago, Judy

Speaker 2: could have at least barked a jab back at him,

Speaker 2: but tonight only a whimper escaped her lips. At least

Speaker 2: I'm lady, she protested quietly, before marching off stage. Both

Speaker 2: parties went home disappointed. For Judy Garland, the sixties swung

Speaker 2: like a fast moving pendulum. She could be a star

Speaker 2: reborn at one moment, smiling under the lights of Carnegie Hall,

Speaker 2: recording one of the most lauded live albums of all time.

Speaker 2: She could be in a coma at the next moment,

Speaker 2: clinging to life in her weak seventy eight pound body,

Speaker 2: like she did during an unfortunate stop in Hong Kong

Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty four. She was unpredictable, and so was

Speaker 2: the public's opinion of her. They loved her, they hated her,

Speaker 2: They loved to hate her. The pattern began the moment

Speaker 2: that Judy was fired from her first picture nearly two

Speaker 2: decades earlier. Up down, Up down. Judy repeated the same

Speaker 2: old song and dance to win them back every time.

Speaker 2: But there wasn't much song left in Judy Garland by

Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine, and dance, well, forget about it. Her

Speaker 2: role as the ascending singer faded in the rear view.

Speaker 2: It was time to embrace the role of the disintegrating star,

Speaker 2: free falling from celebrity status, Embracing for the impact of

Speaker 2: her inevitable crash and burn the very same circle of

Speaker 2: life Judy depicted, and a Star was born condensed into

Speaker 2: one character. Except Judy Garland didn't drown herself in the

Speaker 2: ocean like her character's fictional husband did. Instead, she drowned

Speaker 2: herself in barbituates On June twenty second, nineteen sixty nine.

Speaker 2: Judy's fifth and final husband, Mickey Deans, found her locked

Speaker 2: in the bathroom of the rented London home that morning,

Speaker 2: sitting upright in a chair. Her collapsed onto her chest,

Speaker 2: body stiff from rigor mortis. Doctors declared that the overdose

Speaker 2: was accidental after finding the equivalent dose of ten second

Speaker 2: dollars in Judy's bloodstream. In Judy's final act, the mass

Speaker 2: has swung in her favor one last time. More than

Speaker 2: twenty thousand people gathered at Judy's memorial to pay their respects,

Speaker 2: to honor the early end of a life once destined

Speaker 2: for three or four more decades of entertainment. Judy Garland's

Speaker 2: life mimicked A Star was born, right down to the pacing.

Speaker 2: Too much living crammed into a too short run time.

Speaker 2: If only it could have played out naturally, it could

Speaker 2: have been brilliant. It could have been in pictures. I'm

Speaker 2: Jake Brennan in this This hollywood Land.

Speaker 3: Hollywood Land was created by Years Truly and is produced

Speaker 3: in partnership.

Speaker 2: With Double Elvis.

Speaker 3: Follow like, rate and review hollywood Land wherever you get

Speaker 3: your podcasts, and get in touch with us on social

Speaker 3: media at double Elvis. If you like hollywood Land, check

Speaker 3: out my other show, the award winning Disgraceland, which looks

Speaker 3: at the world of music through the lens of true crime.

Speaker 3: Just search for Disgraceland or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2: Good Good, Alas